Over two thousand years ago, the Imperial Roman Empire attempted to conquer the world. They built the first long-distant roads in Europe (and England) for their army to access the new lands. These roads have been used ever since. The standard Roman war chariots were initially created just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. These Roman chariots formed the initial ruts in these newly-formed roads...

Except for conceiving and raising them, one of the hardest things involved with bringing children into the world is agreeing on a name. For many years, Michael has been the most popular name in the USA for a boy. Lately, names like Cody, Wyatt and Dustin have been moving up the list in popularity...

The following true story came in first place in a Criminal Lawyers Award Contest. A Charlotte, NC, lawyer purchased a box of expensive cigars, then insured them against fire (among other things). Within a month having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company. The lawyer claimed the cigars were lost “in a series of small fires.”...

In the 1990s, Professor William A. Tiller created an experiment whereby a small black box was fitted with a simple electrical circuit and plugged it into a wall socket. Then four people who were highly experienced meditators gathered around a table where the black box was located in the center of the table. ...

In his 1918 book titled TRIVIA, British Author Logan Pearsall Smith (1865 - 1946) wrote "I know too much; I have stuffed too many of the facts of History and Science into my intellectuals. My eyes have grown dim over books; believing in geological periods, cave dwellers, Chinese Dynasties, and the fixed stars has prematurely aged me."...

The greatest threat to individual freedom is an efficient bureaucracy. However, government is a necessary evil. If everyone took responsibility for their own behavior and cooperated on the basis of trust, we would have no need for regulation and oversight. Unfortunately, the human race is imperfect and must enforce a set of reasonable rules to prevent injustice. But the imperfection of the human race often creates a set of unnecessary, unreasonable rules, creating even more injustice...

According to researchers at the John Hopkins School of Medicine, fatal mistakes in hospitals and health care facilities are the third leading cause of death in the USA. The following are the five leading causes of death in the USA. • Heart Disease -- 614,348 deaths per year...

Free at Last Monday, January 18, 2021, is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the third Monday in January of each year. In 1955, at age 26, Martin Luther King, Jr. was thrust into civil-rights leadership in Montgomery, Alabama, after Rosa Parks had made her courageous stand not to move to the back of the bus...

William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their 1997 book titled THE FOURTH TURNING, theorize that society has a collective personality that changes on a regular cyclical basis. This cycle repeats itself every four generations (every 80 to 100 years), with each generation having a distinct persona...

Robbinsdale High School, in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, a northwest suburb of Minneapolis, was at one time the largest high school in Minnesota. I was a graduate of RHS in the class of 1962. In the RHS class of 1961, there was a girl, Marlene Kringstad, who was named best actress of her graduating class. ...

When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a treasure hunter. I imagined it would be a grand adventure with the remote possibility of actually striking it rich someday. In my 20s and 30s, I spent my working hours sitting at a desk writing computer programs. At age 42, I turned my back on the rat race of big city life and spent about six years prospecting for gold in Central Arizona...

A recent article in a local Sunday newspaper asked several teen-agers what they would include if there was such a thing as a “Teen Bill of Rights” -- confirming my suspicions that most young people are about as clueless as a bag of horse feathers about the real world...

When I was in college, back in the 1960’s, I spent lots of time trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. I wanted to be an architect or a mining engineer or a treasure hunter, depending on the mood of the day. Then I stumbled onto a brand new profession, called computer programming. It sounded technical, mysterious and lucrative. I decided to give it a try...

Life is like a box of chocolates -- it’s full of temptation and eventually becomes empty. The cacao tree, also known as “Theobroma cacao” to those who prefer scientific names, is native to the tropical, equatorial slopes of the Andes in South America. Theobroma is Greek for “food of the Gods.” The ancient Aztecs worshipped the cacao tree and used the beans as currency...

Lao Tzu Proverb: "The career of a sage is of two kinds -- He is either honored by all in the world, like a flower waving its head, or else he disappears into the silent forest.” Around 500 BC, Socrates developed a political and ethical philosophy in Greece, Pythagoras founded a mathematical, astronomical and philosophy society in Greece, Buddha expounded about Dharma and Nirvana in India, and Lao Tzu wrote the TAO TE CHING in China. It was an epoch of great intellectual and mystical evolution...

In 1980, I was a computer programmer and manager in Los Angeles, taking screenwriting classes at night. One day I learned of the existence of 12 pyramids (two rows of six each) that an orbiting satellite had discovered in a remote area of the dense Amazon rain forest in Brazil, near Peru. I decided to use this information for my first screenplay...

In the 1990s, Professor William A. Tiller created an experiment whereby a small black box was fitted with a simple electrical circuit and plugged it into a wall socket. Then four people who were highly experienced meditators gathered around a table where the black box was located in the center of the table. ...

In May of 2012, I had a personal health problem whereby I couldn't walk 10 feet without stopping to catch my breath. I reluctantly went to the local ER and was soon admitted (after a couple of tests) into the Fulton County Hospital with congestive heart failure and blood clots on my lungs. After about 10 days, I was released but still didn't feel very well. I was now on blood thinners and other medications...

Bob Brewer was born and raised in western Arkansas. As a youngster, his great-uncle introduced him to a mystery that included wilderness paths, hidden symbols, carvings on trees and rocks, and the topography of certain areas. The old man was the keeper of some sort of secret knowledge that he kept to himself...

[Friday is September 11, 2020 -- during the the morning of September 11, 2001, I got a phone call from my friend Mike in Minneapolis -- Mike quickly said, "Turn on the TV." then hung up -- I turned on the TV just as the 2nd plane slammed into the 2nd Twin Tower -- another turning point of infamy]...